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Setting Realistic & Achievable Goals

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Everyone should be setting some sort of goals for themselves, however, setting achievable goals is even more important. I think many students can make the mistake of setting goals that aren’t as easy as they thought they may have been. This is one of the concepts we learned in class called SMART goals. For instance, when I was in middle school I wanted to go to and Ivy League school and play golf. However, when it came time to apply to college my golf skills were nowhere near where they should have been. Then when I got to college and began my biology undergrad I wanted to get straight A’s. I wanted to be top of the class and take honors classes. This goal was achievable in high school, however, when I got to college it was a huge shock to find out how hard college truly was. Instead of getting straight A’s in my science courses I was getting B’s and an A rarely. This really affected me mentally, because while getting straight A’s in high school was easy for me it was a completely different story in college. No matter how hard I worked in a class I would more than likely end up with a B. With that being said I wish I had learned early on that goals should change when addressing different stages in your life. I think if I knew that high school was going to be a cakewalk compared to college then my goals would have been much more different. Therefore, my goals in college began to change after sophomore year. My new goals for college were to try my best, work as hard as I could in school, and maintain a good GPA. Rather than worrying about a percentage or letter grade, I focused on staying positive and knowing at the end of the day I did the best that I could in that class. Having this goal in school has allowed a lot of pressure to lift off of my shoulders.

 

Online Notetaking

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I think notetaking is an important strategy to learn when studying for school. Online notetaking, however, can be tricky. When you are in person and see a teacher speaking they may mention that a subject is more important to write down than others. Therefore, it can be difficult to identify what material is important and what isn’t as important when taking an online course. I believe the Cornell Method allows you to absorb the material you are taking notes on the most. There are 5 steps to this method:

Step 1- Record/type notes on the left side of your paper.

Step 2- Create questions that pertain to the notes you took.

Step 3- Recite. Quiz yourself by covering the left side of your paper while answering the questions you created on the right side of your paper.

Step 4- Reflect by determining which questions you may have had issues with when answering. This will show you what areas you need to work on.

Step 5- Review the material you wrote out and quiz yourself again until you start to understand the topics you struggled in more.

I follow this method consistently when learning about tough subjects in my science classes. This method has truly helped me learn the material and retain it in order to be successful when it comes time for testing.

Take Aways from ESLTECH 2011

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1. Throughout the years of taking online classes, I think setting goals is definitely a key aspect when taking these courses. Goals are what allows a student to stay motivated during the course while also making sure that goals are completed by a certain deadline. If we were able to take online classes and do the class whenever we wanted to as long as the work was in before the semester ended then I think multiple students would procrastinate and wait until the last minute. When a class is structured with due dates, it allows the student to plan out their week and set short term goals for themselves that they know are going to be achievable.

2. Time management is extremely important for online classes. Many people think that online classes are going to be easy or not have a lot of hard work, however, you can spend just as much time in an online class than you do in a class that is in person. When taking online classes you should create a schedule of all of your in-person classes and add your online class into the spaces either in between your in-person class or after. This will ensure that you have planned time to set aside for your online classes and you are putting in just as much effort. It can be easy to slip into procrastination when you are home, therefore, I found it easier to work on my online classes in a library.

3. It can be difficult to meet for group projects during school. However, we are extremely lucky for how advanced our generation is in technology because now you can meet up with people online. Planning when to meet online can be hectic at times. When you are in a group message with multiple people it can be hard to keep track of what time everyone agrees on. Important tools to relieve this problem are Doodle, When2Meet and Buckeyemail calendar. These will allow your group to schedule meeting times much more efficiently without having your phone getting bombarded with multiple text messages and time suggestions.